Nashville. We're still in that dry season before the new movies premiere, so it's a good week to catch anything you may have missed the last couple of months while you were browning yourself on the Cote d'Azur or wherever. Altman's latest is definitely worth your while. The finale is a bit contrived, but individual vignettes are alternately revealing, funny, and devastating. The critical success of Nashville has led to a series of revivals of older Altman movies. M*A*S*H is perhaps the funniest antiwar movie ever made, but you'll have to be on your toes if you want to catch all of the dialogue. Ditto with The Long Goodbye, where Altman sets a Raymond Chandler novel in present-day California. Elliot Gould is Phillip Marlowe, and he gives the best performance of his career. Watch him fool his cat.

Farewell, My Lovely takes a more traditional (one is tempted to say unimaginative) approach to Chandler. It's a pretty good re-creation of the 1940's, with references to Joltin' Joes's 56 game hitting streak and the Nazi invasion of Russia, but so what and who needs it. Robert Mitchum plays it very low-keyed. As a matter of fact, on the energy level barometer the entire production rates about a minus five. Mitchum himself is none too enthusiastic about the movie. Asked if he recommended seeing it, he hesitated. "Well, if it's a real hot day and you want to go someplace air conditioned and there's nothing else to do..." I want my Velma.

Day of the Locust. A guady adaptation of Nathaniel West's fine, sparsely sketched novel. Somebody in the Village Voice pointed out that this movie should have looked like Chinatown and China-town should have looked like this. A mixup in cinematographer contracts, no doubt. Good performances by Karen Black and Burgess Meredith make it worth $1.25 at Harvard Square on Monday and Tuesday nights.